Friday, August 24, 2012

Getting Out of Town

We are planning on leaving the area today. We just haven’t finalized our plans yet.

We have a big tropical storm (Isaac) heading in this direction. It’s expected to become a hurricane. Florida was right square in the middle of the “cone of uncertainty” until late yesterday.

The cone is slowly moving west, giving Florida less of a chance to see a landfall.

However, this is not set in stone and things can certainly change. We are on the west coast of Florida, towards the middle. You can see if the hurricane comes to the right side of the “cone” it will come directly over us. The problem is that the upper right quadrant of a hurricane is the worst place to be.

We are not as worried about a direct hit, as the strong winds and rain from the feeder bands of the storm. Hurricanes are known to spawn tornadoes and we don’t want to be anywhere in the area…..if we can help it.

So, do we head north and follow in the path of David and Sherry? Do we head east and go over to Vero Beach as we previously planned? One place we definitely will not go is anywhere near the Florida panhandle. Landfall just might be on the northern gulf somewhere between Pensacola, Florida and Texas. These storms frequently make landfall and then take a sharp right. Many times they head right up the east coast. So, do we want to be in South Carolina or Georgia? Maybe not.

We had hoped by this morning we would have a clear choice of the best place to go. We are leaning towards Vero Beach, but we’re still not certain. We’re thinking maybe we’ll go there, and then if things change, we’ll be close to I-95 to head north.

In the meantime, Al and I worked all day getting things ready to travel. We’ve been sitting here since June 20th (except the two days we spent in Clearwater)

Al took the kayak racks from the old truck and mounted them on the new one. We hadn’t done it earlier because we weren’t sure which truck we would be towing.

We also took the TST Tire Pressure monitors off the old truck and put them on the new one. They had to all be re-calibrated for the different tire pressure. He aired up the new truck tires a little bit while he was doing that.

Al also moved all the “stuff” from the bed of the old truck to the new one. He had to put the bicycle rack on the new truck, check the fluids (again) and did some cleaning and organizing.

He kept pretty busy, and mostly worked outside in the heat and humidity.

I broke down and called Verizon for help with our Mi-fi connection. We have free Wi-Fi here so we hadn’t been using Verizon. We discovered a problem connecting my laptop. Al’s Xoom was working fine, so we knew if was my laptop. It took a little while to get through all the phone prompts but he got me fixed up quite easily. Yea!!

Next, I had to re-calibrate the sensors on the tire monitoring system. Al’s job is to air the tires and move them over, and my job it so calibrate them. I can never remember how to do it and always have to read the directions.

I’ve been having a bad neck and headache the past few days. Nothing seemed to help, so I finally gave up, put some Joint Flex on it, and laid on a heating pad. That helped some. I wondered if it was all stress related.

Next was a run to the grocery store. There is a great little place here called Nutrition S’mart. They have lots of health foods and organic produce. We’ve been going there a lot since we started our “Vegan Experiment.”

We’re trying to eat more like David and Sherry do. They eat a lot of beans. We were there the other day and David was cooking up a dish with black beans, tomatoes, avocados, and maybe rice. It looked good, and the sunflower seeds he was browning really smelled delicious.

Al has been getting a little discouraged because he had hit a plateau on his weight loss. He finally broke through the barrier and is now down 10 pounds! I hit the 8 pound mark in just over a month. I’m sure it will slow down from here on out. Part of the problem is the longer we eat Vegan, the more things we find to eat and we’re eating too much! It’s truly been the easiest weight I’ve ever lost. We eat all we want (maybe that’s one problem) and we snack often. We’ve discovered some really delicious foods and there are so many more things we haven’t even tried yet.

Any of you who follow politics (and I hope you all do) know that the Republican National Convention is in Tampa this week. Yes, that’s right, they planned a convention on the Tampa waterfront in the height of hurricane season.

There are a lot of “Occupy” people coming to camp out, protest, and make generally make a mess. They stay in tents in little tent cities. They interviewed one guy who just arrived and asked him what he had done to prepare for the possibility of a hurricane. “What hurricane”. He went on to say his “charm” and personality would keep him safe. Good luck with that one. I certainly wouldn’t want to be in a tent during even the outer edges of a hurricane. Tampa emergency preparedness people have to make plans for them to go to shelters, but these people are saying they won’t leave their stuff, so they won’t go. Of course there is no room for all their “stuff”. No problem….enjoy the rain and wind.

I guess we’ll drink more coffee and mess around on our computers awhile and see if we can come up with a plan.

Watched the news this morning and it seems they still aren't sure where Isaac is going to go. But no matter which path he takes, Tampa is going to get lots of wind and rain. I think east is the best direction for you guys to head. Good luck. Will be thinking about you.

I'm with you, run for the hills, hurricanes are nothing to fool with. Having lived on the NJ shore for 11 years and suffered through many winter Noreasters and a winter hurricane (the Perfect Storm) better safe than sorry.

As for those Occupy idiots, maybe they'll have all their tent cities blown away, they seem to make a huge mess everywhere they go. I don't care what their politics are, they are slobs and disrespectful.

Anyway, good luck, you've been through a lot so hopefully you'll find a nice safe place to chill and relax.

Glad to hear you are all ready to take a well-deserved trip with your new toad. I heard the St. Simons Island area (near Brunswick, Georgia) is a good place for kayaking. May be on the warm side though. Have fun wherever the road takes you!

It kind of looks like Isaac is shifting back & forth a little on the predictions, but not by much. So far, it still looks like part of Fla & Alabama. Being from hurricane country, I want to head south west of the storm! But that's definintely not you your route plan. I hope you'll find a safe space to go to. With each update though, you'll get a better idea of where to ultimately go.

I would head up towards Orlando or the east coast south of Jacksonville and make sure you don't park at a park in the flood plain or near a creek. Looking at the storm track and being a long time storm watcher from living down there it's most likely to skim by Tampa and turn North into the panhandle. Following that it will head somewhere between North and Northeast depending on the fronts over the US that steer it at that point. Likely will be at least in mid Georgia as it heads back out to sea at worst and probably some what north of that so Orlando/Jax would be fine. If it was me I would go to the east coast even with Orlando and not worry about it but would watch the weather and if necessary at that point you can evacuate south as it's almost certain it won't go that way.

Karen, Perfect walk around the storm news......you have it all down pat......I am leaving in the morning for the western NC area..... Hope that will be a good choice .....the roads will probably be crowded just because I think people are beginning to take this one seriously..... Those Occupy folks have most likely never ridden out a major storm....much less dealt with the flooding and flying objects and tree limbs ....They will have a lesson to learn ....know it alls !!!!!! Good luck with your plans and enjoy being "on the road again" !!!!